Bay Rama Festival celebrates 50 years in New Baltimore

A truck carrying a midway ride pulls into downtown New Baltimore Monday morning. The annual festival kicks off Wednesday though the unofficial opening, the Anchor Bay Tastefest, is set for Tuesday.
Katelyn Larese--For The Macomb Daily

Since launching in 1964, the Bay-Rama Fishfly Festival has emerged as a true staple of the New Baltimore community. From the annual Festival Parade to the Miss Bay-Rama Pageant, organizers continue to provide citizens with affordable family fun each year while also working to give back.

Through Sunday, the Bay-Rama Festival Committee will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the summer festival with a variety of special events and activities. This year’s five-day event is packed with traditional festival favorites, as well as a few special activities to celebrate the occasion.

Those who come out for the fireworks display can expect to see a show with “considerably more boom and bang” than in the past, said Mayor John Dupray, who also serves as president of the Bay-Rama executive board. Organizers have also put more money into this year’s parade, which will feature acts from near and far, Dupray said.

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“Because it’s our 50th anniversary, we’ve been planning this for over a year and we wanted to do something special to try to brand Bay-Rama - if people didn’t know who we are or that we’ve done a lot of good things,” he added. “I grew up here and my family moved away, but we always seem to gravitate back for Bay-Rama. It really became a family event for our family, and I’m sure it was for others.”

The group of volunteers has provided more than $2 million to the city and its residents since its inception. Each year, the committee awards scholarships to Anchor Bay graduates and winners of the Miss Bay-Rama Pageant. For its 50th year, scholarship awards have been increased.

“Bay-Rama’s mission is to give back to the community, not only with scholarships, but also we are on a mission of public improvement,” Dupray said.

The festival committee bought, developed and donated most of the property now known as Walter and Mary Burke Park, Dupray said, noting the land was valued at $660,000 at the time it was donated to the city. Volunteers also purchased and assembled the playscape that stands at the park today.

In 2012, the Bay-Rama Committee made the final donation of the remainder of Festival Park, located off of St. Clair Drive, to the city of New Baltimore. Bay-Rama Inc. purchased the 40-acres of landlocked property in 1992, seeing a future need for more recreational space in the community.

Ron Custer, who served as the first Bay-Rama committee president, said two-thirds of Festival Park was purchased with funds raised by the festival committee.

“The city uses the income from the festival to give back to the community and make improvements,” Custer said. “The park originally was going to be purchased by the Catholic church and was to be turned into a school. Once we purchased it, we were able to open it up, making it possible for subdivisions to flourish. Now we have established, and are still working on, baseball and soccer fields for the children, as well as a nature walk.

“We are and always have been about giving back to our beloved community.”

Executive Board Director Larry Gingas said Festival Park wouldn’t be developed as it is today if it weren’t for the efforts of the entire festival committee.

“Now, over two decades and a million dollars later, that drab piece of 40 acres has been transformed into Festival Park, which has three baseball diamonds and a fourth on the way,” Gingas wrote in a column. “There are also three large parking areas, two multi-use soccer fields, a one-mile walking path and a lacrosse field. The memorial tree planting program continues as well, showing again the continued efforts in New Baltimore to keep this community shining.”

Cheryl Hepp, executive board assistant director, credits the festival’s success to the many volunteers who help each year.

“While the festival is only five days long, it is a full two weeks of many people working close together to get everything set up, prepared and then taken down at the end,” Hepp said. “Many families are there from sun up to sun down just making sure that everything is taken care of. The pre-planning and work is what makes everything work so well.”

Events planned for this week include the unofficial kickoff tonight, the Anchor Bay Tastefest. A collection of 17 vendors will serve up food at the event, put on the by Anchor Bay Chamber of Commerce.

The midway opens at noon Wednesday with carnival rides whirling each day of the festival through its close Sunday at 9 p.m.

The Miss Bay-Rama pageant will be held Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. The fireworks are set for Thursday at dusk while the annual parade is set to march along Green Street at 1 p.m.